“One day,” she promised him, “God will punish you for all this.”
“Will he?” Luke laughed. “I’m sure I will deserve my days in purgatory, but not for this.”
“Maybe you’ll get to rot in hell,” Donna said sweetly.
“Maybe. None of us knows for sure.”
The check came. Luke kept smiling while Donna signed it, then pushed back her chair and rose.
“Well, Father, I suppose I’ll see you at church tomorrow.”
“Yes, I suppose you will.” He rose and took her elbow.
Donna sighed. “I can get to my room by myself, Father.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“But I won’t?”
“Very perceptive, Donna.”
“What does the church think of priests who bribe and threaten the innocent?”
“Are you innocent?”
“Oh, God!” She groaned.
“Come on, I’ll see you to your room.”
They made the trek to the elevator again and then down the hall to her room in silence. She made no protest when he took the card key and unlocked the door. He pushed it open, turned on the light, and strode into the room, making no excuses as he checked out her closet and bath.
“All clear,” he murmured cheerfully.
“Thanks,” Donna murmured.
He moved to where she stood in the doorway. In that small space, they were very close. The scent that was male and pleasant came to her again, and it suddenly seemed as if her knees could very easily buckle. She gazed into his eyes with their misted gold and green, and felt a fierce trembling along with the desire to reach out and touch the bronzed texture of his cheek. He was a priest, she tried to remind herself. But the thought wouldn’t come; he was a man, one who attracted her more than she had ever thought possible, one who reached out to her, excited her, stirred her…touched her. Something happened to her in those moments, something that she would never understand.
The seconds ticked by as they stared at one another. She couldn’t seem to move…not until he did. His hand came to her waist, slid to her hip, then slowly up her spine until his fingers wound into the hair at her nape. She had no thought to fight him as he tilted her head back, as his free hand slipped around her, bringing her firmly against him. He was hard and warm and wonderful, and she felt the length of his body with her own before she closed her eyes and felt the gentle force of his lips touching her own, urging them apart.
She felt his tongue, moving, caressing, exploring more and more deeply, as probing as his eyes, touching her soul, exciting her, making her feel faint. She clung to him, she lifted her fingertips to his cheeks. Freshly shaved, slightly rough. Very masculine. She returned the kiss, seeking him as he sought her, relishing the hardness of him, in the beauty of sensation that made her feel both faint and very, very alive. Sparks touched her system, trembling throughout her, seizing her, releasing her. He created a hunger in her, something so strong it couldn’t be denied. She wanted to forget the world around them and know more of him. She wanted to have him beside her, holding her, naked, touching her….
He raised his head, smiling as he stared down at her dazed eyes. He steadied her. “Tomorrow, Donna,” he murmured, and then he was gone.
Donna watched his dark-clad back and broad shoulders as he walked down the hallway. She echoed a small sound of horror and shame and slammed the door, closing her eyes as she leaned heavily against it.
She groaned aloud, shaking. A priest! Dear Lord, a priest had kissed her, and she had wanted it. Wanted much, much more. She had wanted to lie beside him, to make love to him. She! A woman who had spent twelve years in Catholic schools. Oh, if the nuns could see her now. Donna Miro, falling for—a priest.
“No…no…no!” she whispered in dismay. Her face flamed a brilliant red and she raced the few feet to the bed, throwing herself on it to rock back and forth. What was happening to her, and what in heaven and hell was going on?
CHAPTER SIX
LUKE ENTERED HIS BEDROOM and stripped off his jacket with uncustomary speed, tugging at a sleeve while combing through his closet. He saw what he wanted—a pea-green, tattered army sweater. A moment later he was tugging on the sweater and replacing his dress pants with a pair of worn jeans. He started out his bedroom door, but a slight sound alerted him to turn back.
A figure, shrouded by the darkness, was crawling through the garden window. It straightened and stared at Luke.
Both men were of equal height. The intruder was slimmer, and the character of his face was masked by a dense growth of beard and an untrimmed mustache. The dark hair on his head was as wild and tangled as his beard; his clothing more tattered than Luke’s old army-issue sweater.
But Luke smiled at his sorry-looking visitor and quietly closed his bedroom door. He drew the drapes before flicking on a light, then embraced the shaggy man briefly before indicating the plush period chair that sat before the garden window.
“Have a seat, Andrew,” he encouraged. “I was just about to come looking for you.”
Andrew leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes wearily for a minute. He rubbed his temple with his thumb and forefingers. “I figured you would, that’s why I tried to beat you to it. No sense the two of us crawling around different ghettos trying to find one another.” He opened his eyes at last. “You got anything decent to drink around here?”
Luke chuckled softly and strode to a small carved cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels and offered it to Andrew. Andrew smiled like a high-school kid as he took the bottle, twisted off the top, and drank a long gulp. He straightened the bottle, shuddered slightly, and returned it to Luke.
“Damn—sorry, Father, but that was good. After all that rot gut I’ve been drinking with the winos!”
“Bad day?” Luke queried.
“Yeah—even before I heard from Tricia.” He gazed at Luke accusingly. “How on earth did you stumble into Donna Miro—and why did you tell her that you knew me?”
Luke shrugged and decided to take a swig of the Jack Daniels himself. “That was exactly it—I stumbled into her. She was trying to find an address from a letter you wrote her and was in the process of being mugged when I found her.”
“Oh,” Andrew murmured. “Have you got a cigarette, Luke?”
Luke patiently obliged him.
Andrew inhaled deeply, then grimaced. “Much, much better than the butts I’ve been smoking all day!”
Luke tensed. “How long do you think this is going to go on?”
Andrew lifted his brows and shrugged helplessly. “I wish I knew. Hey—you’re supposedly the one with the pipeline to the Almighty. Can’t you pray any harder that we nab this guy?”
He had tried to be flippant and easy, and he knew that his effort had failed miserably when he watched Luke tense, pain filling his eyes before he turned away.
Andrew watched, his hands clenched together tightly behind his back. “Hey, Luke, I’m sorry. I know if anyone has been praying—”
Luke turned back to him, then sat at the foot of the bed, raking his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’m better off not to feel so viciously that he must be caught. I’m a priest, Drew. I shouldn’t hate this guy so much.”
“You’re a human being. You wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t hate him after…what happened.”
Luke said nothing for a minute, lighting a cigarette himself. He watched a mist of smoke fade away. “Have you been able to see Mom lately?”
“Last week.” He grimaced, then smiled ruefully again, feeling that the tension was past. “I sometimes hate to go see her. She spends the whole time moaning over my hair.”
Luke laughed so hard he choked. “Hey, she’s your mother. What do you want?”
“Ah, Mom’s a good old girl, I guess. She worries about us both, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. But I’m okay.”
“I know, you are.”
The brothers gazed at one another for a minute
, then both smiled.
“So, tell me, what’s she like?”
“Donna Miro?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s…”
“Gorgeous,” Andrew supplied. Luke arched a curious brow. “I was watching you two when you entered the hotel.”
“You do manage to get around this city—and be in the right place at the right time,” Luke murmured.
“Did you tell her that we’re related?”
“I didn’t tell her anything, and certainly nothing that might imperil your cover. I just figured that if anyone could get you, it would be Irish. And then it would be up to you. You do know about her, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Andrew said dryly. “Lorna has mentioned her to me several times. Or, I should say, when she’s talking to me at all, she talks about Donna and her family.” He hesitated. “When we first met, she told me a lot about the Miros. Lorna’s an only child of older parents who died when she was in college. But from what I understand, she used to spend all her time with them even when she was a kid.”
Luke emitted a sigh of exasperation. “Then you must have expected someone to come around looking for Lorna! If she is close to this girl—”
“She promised me that she’d taken care of it!” Andrew exclaimed with annoyance. “The little”—he glanced at his brother and apparently amended his thought—“witch!”
Luke chuckled softly. “She was once the most beautiful woman you had ever seen. What happened?”
“How do I know? She’s impossible!”
“She’s probably frightened—and she has every right to be.”
“She should have a little more faith in me.” He sighed. “It really doesn’t matter. I haven’t seen her in a while—and it will probably be awhile before I can see her again.”
Luke shrugged, but his eyes twinkled a warm gold in the artificial light. “Things will improve eventually.”
“Umm. Someday this will end, and Lorna can go home and be entirely out of my hair.”
“I see. Can’t wait to get her completely out of sight—and mind?”
“Definitely.”
Luke had no reply, so he turned away before his brother could see his laughter. Andrew had always been high on freedom. Adventuresome, independent. It was difficult for him to accept the fact that he was falling in love with his key witness. So difficult that he was refusing to accept it.
“Well, what are you going to do about Donna Miro?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew murmured. “But it’s sure given me one hell of a headache. Damn that Lorna! She should have said she was taking an Alaskan cruise or something.”
“Well, yes, I’d say something should have been done differently. You’re going to have to come up with something now. The truth would probably be the best bet. Donna Miro is determined. She isn’t going to give up.”
“My superiors will play havoc with this one.” Andrew moaned.
“It isn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it is. Lorna is my responsibility.”
“I wouldn’t worry. It will work out.”
“I hope so. I’ve been at this so long. And….” He paused, glancing at his brother again. “I hope so,” he repeated.
Luke sighed. “You don’t have to tiptoe with my feelings, Andrew. It’s been a long time now.”
“It must still hurt.”
“It does. It always will. But it’s more important that we solve everything now. No matter how hard I prayed, I couldn’t change the past. But I do believe in the future.”
“God’s will?” Andrew asked his brother dryly.
Luke gave him a half smile. “I guess you’ve got me there, Drew. Yeah, God’s will. It will work out.”
Andrew began to drum his fingers on the arm of the chair. “I guess I’ll have to tell her the truth, or else I could wind up in trouble.”
“Yeah, that’s why I think you should make sure you arrive here looking half respectable tomorrow night.”
“Well, if I tell her the truth, she can check out my story.”
“And put herself into possible danger if she’s seen by the wrong people.”
“Damn Lorna! This thing is so fragile!”
“That’s true. And you’ve put a hell of a lot into being Andrew ‘McKennon’—bum, wino, et cetera. You’ve put months and months of your life into it. Almost a year….” Luke paused suddenly; he couldn’t help it. It hurt to remember when it had all begun—because it had all begun with April’s death. And when he thought about April, he still felt a sense of shock settling over him. It couldn’t be…and yet it was. Shock became that horrible sense of loss and pain—and helpless fury at that loss. He had to remind himself that he was a priest with a strong belief. April did not lie in the ground; she had entered a higher place. Life was something that he had learned to live without her—with the aid of his faith. If he could help, it had to be the living whom he helped. But no matter what his faith, he was human. He wanted the murderer caught. He wanted his brother to lead a saner life. And, God help him, more than anything, he wanted Lorna Doria to live and come out of everything okay.
Luke drew in a deep breath and continued. “This has cost you a great deal of personal happiness. It’s cost everyone…so much. Donna is a problem, but I think if it’s explained to her properly, she’ll accept it all and just lay low. The truth will be the best bet, Andrew. I don’t think she’d accept anything but. And if she nosed around elsewhere, you could be out of a good cover. The newspapers would hop all over the story.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said thoughtfully. “I guess I’d better make the best possible impression.” He paused for a minute, then gazed at his brother again. “They want to see you down at headquarters again.”
A pained expression passed quickly over Luke’s handsome features. “I’ve tried, Drew. You know that. I just come up with a blank wall.”
“Different case—and I don’t need help on the other one. I know what’s going on. I just have to figure out how to prove it.” Andrew shook his head, as if to clear it from the problem that had long plagued his days and nights. “They need help bad on what they suspect to be a kidnapping. No clues except a scrap of cloth.”
“Tell them I’ll be in on Monday,” Luke said.
“They’ll appreciate it.”
“Yeah. I think they’re afraid of me.”
“No.” Andrew laughed. “Not you, Luke. They’re a bit in awe of you. You’re a priest, and I guess they really think you have a direct line to heavenly assistance.”
“Great,” Luke muttered.
“Hey, what difference does it make? You can help sometimes, and you know it.”
“I’ll be there.”
Andrew stood regretfully, looking back at the comfortable, well-padded Victorian chair. “I guess I’ll go haunt St. Patricks, then head downtown. Got another cigarette?”
“Take the pack.”
Andrew accepted it, grinning. “Poor Mom and Dad! They were hoping for a lawyer and a doctor and they got an overgrown hippie and a crazy guru.”
“Speak for yourself!” Luke laughed. “My bishops would be horrified by your description of one of their priests!”
Andrew chuckled again, then slipped silently out the window, the same way he had come. Luke stared after his brother a long while, then thoughtfully stripped down to the buff and crawled into bed.
He didn’t sleep. He stared out the window to the garden beyond and watched the way the moonbeams created shadow and light. He hadn’t felt quite so restless in a long time.
It was the girl, of course. He hadn’t felt quite so affected by a woman in a long, long time. Maybe never. When he was near her, all he wanted to do was reach out and touch her. He smiled in the darkness, fully aware that she felt the same tension drawing them together and that it horrified her.
He rolled over suddenly, wondering why he had decided to trust her when it threw a new problem right in his brother’s lap. No, he’d had little choice. She might have gone elsewhere.
And she might have wound up in all the wrong places at all the wrong time.
It was strange. He had just met her, but she had already eased him somewhat. For the first time in months, he hadn’t thought about April, not until Andrew’s arrival. That was the way of things, he told himself wryly. Life went on for the living. Human nature. A time to mourn, a time to live again. A new love—not to replace the lost, but to exist strong and sure on its own.
Luke laughed aloud and twisted around to lie comfortably on his pillow. Love! He’d just met her. But he was attracted. So attracted, he was almost afraid of being close. She’d really be shocked if a priest swept her into his arms, tossed her onto her bed, and made desperate, passionate love to her!
But, oh, what a lovely dream!
St. Philip’s Episcopal Church.
Episcopal!
Oh, what an idiot she had been! She should have known—she should have realized the truth about “Father Luke.” She had just been conditioned all her life to believe that a man called priest was naturally a Roman Catholic.
He wasn’t. He was Protestant. Episcopalian. Donna closed her eyes for a minute, angry but smiling dryly. To her grandfather, anyone who wasn’t a Roman Catholic was a bit of a heathen.
Donna repeated the simple fact in her mind. Luke Trudeau wasn’t a Roman Catholic. He wasn’t sworn to a celibate life.
Great. She had spent her night wondering if there really was a hell where she might burn in torment forever for lusting after a priest and he was an Episcopalian, allowed by his religion to marry, to love a woman. And he had known that she thought him a Roman Catholic and he had played on her sense of morality with a great deal of amusement. Damn him! Even if he was a priest!
“Donna? We should really go in. The service is about to begin.”
Donna mechanically curled her lips into a smile for Tricia. “Yes, heaven forbid! I’d hate to walk in late and disturb the service.”
Tricia, who had arrived at the Plaza at precisely four with a waiting taxi, looked confused by her tone of voice. Donna tried to make her smile into something more sincere. She failed miserably; she was too angry to smile. But she slipped an arm through the other woman’s and led the way down the walk to the church.
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